Holyoke, MA, U.S.A. --- (METERING.COM) --- October 8, 2013 - ISO New England has completed its synchrophasor deployment in a three-year project that was supported by a smart grid investment grant from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) – on schedule and under budget.

Under the Synchrophasor Infrastructure and Data Utilization (SIDU) project, ISO-NE and the regional transmission owners installed nearly 80 PMUs at 40 substations in New England, phasor data concentrators (PDCs) at the ISO and seven transmission owners, as well as the communication infrastructure to support PMU data streaming from the substations to the transmission owners and then to the ISO.

Orlando, FL, U.S.A. --- (METERING.COM) --- October 8, 2013 - The ‘collaborative energy exchange’ model for charging of electric vehicles (EVs) lowers the barriers and gives more control to consumers.

This is the word from Itron, which is displaying a Nissan Leaf alongside a Clipper Creek charging station with embedded Itron communications and metrology, part of the company’s Embedded Sensing platform, at Itron Utility Week this week.

Rotterdam, The Netherlands --- (METERING.COM) --- October 8, 2013 - A smart solution for the electric vehicle (EV) charging market has been developed by Dutch service provider Eneco/Utiliq and Slovenian smart metering provider Iskraemeco – and the first set of Iskraemeco smart meters has been delivered and installed at several locations in the Netherlands for the contract with Alphabet Car Leasing.

The Smart@home solution comprises an Iskraemeco smart meter, which is installed in the switchboard (at the grid connection) and is connected via the electricity cable to the charging wall box. The dedicated smart meter records the electricity usage of the charging EV at the wall box and sends the data – via a secure GPRS connection – to the meter data management platform. Within this platform this data is analyzed and transformed to separate charging transactions (time start/stop and volume in kWh).

Arlington, VA, U.S.A. --- (METERING.COM) --- October 7, 2013 - A new study from the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) has revealed the interesting finding that almost half of online U.S. households have a programmable and/or smart thermostat currently installed in their homes – making home automation technologies that offer energy efficiency the most popular type of installed home technologies among U.S. consumers.

Fortum, Finland --- (METERING.COM) --- October 7, 2013 - Fortum has completed its smart electricity meters installation, with the deployment of 610,000 smart meters over the past three years.

Close to 200 people worked in the project, and a completely new meter management system supplied by Schneider Electric was deployed. Eltel Networks was responsible for installation of the meters, which were from Echelon, with PLC and ZigBee for local connectivity.

Paris, France --- (METERING.COM) --- October 7, 2013 - On July 25, France’s minister of Ecology, Sustainable Development and Energy and Economy and Finance gave their approval in principle – with a final decision to follow the tender outcome – to the mass deployment of the Gazpar smart gas meters.

This statement followed two positive deliberations by France’s Energy Regulatory Commission (CRE) on June 13, 2013, confirming that the project fully complies with consumers’ expectations regarding billing accuracy and contributes to helping energy management. Specifically in its deliberations CRE recommended that a positive decision be made regarding the mass rollout of smart gas meters, and proposed necessary modifications to the regulatory framework.

At the same time a new independent interactive online tool was made available for households to investigate potential savings with flexible pricing plans. Users are able to upload their smart meter data or other recent bill data to build a ‘power profile’, from which the savings can be identified.

New Delhi, India --- (METERING.COM) --- October 4, 2013 - Tata Power Delhi Distribution has selected IBM for the design and delivery of its smart grid solution that will collect and analyze real time information from smart meters and data from the communication and management infrastructure.

This will enable Tata Power Delhi Distribution to better manage energy output and further reduce outages. The company, a joint venture between Tata Power and the Delhi government, provides power to over 1.3 million customers across the northern and northwestern part of Delhi.

Tokyo, Japan --- (METERING.COM) --- October 4, 2013 - Tokyo Electric Power Company Inc. (TEPCO) has become the first utility to select the Wi-SUN specification for the wireless protocol between smart meter and home energy management systems for the wireless B route of its 27 million smart meter deployment.

Chisinau, Republic of Moldova and Madrid, Spain --- (METERING.COM) --- October 4, 2013 - PRIME Alliance certification has been granted to ADD GRUP’s ADDAX single phase and three phase meters following testing at DNV KEMA’s laboratories.

Besides the standard features available on PRIME meters, ADDAX single phase and three phase meters have extended functionality including USB, wireless M-BUS, and PLC FSK132 interfaces for home area network. At the same time the meters are based on a universal communication platform, which allows usage of S-FSK IEC-61334 compliant communication technology.

Toronto, ON, Canada --- (METERING.COM) --- October 3, 2013 - Ontario’s ministry of energy and the MaRS Discovery District have launched the Energy Apps for Ontario Challenge with $50,000 to support the best new apps that use electricity data collected by smart meters.

The aim is that these apps will help Ontario households and businesses manage and better understand their electricity use, so they can make informed decisions and save money.

The Challenge forms part of the introduction of a Green Button initiative in Ontario, which was initiated by the province and MaRS Discovery District last November. In the current first Download My Data phase, so far over 50 percent of the province’s electricity customers are able to download their electricity usage data from their utility’s website by clicking on a green button. Utilities that have made Download My Data available to their customers online include London Hydro, Hydro One, Toronto Hydro, PowerStream and Hydro Ottawa. Others that are working toward launching Download My Data in the coming months include Guelph Hydro, Peterborough Utilities, North Bay Hydro, Milton Hydro and Festival Hydro.

In the next phase, Connect My Data, customers will be able to authorize direct, secure transfers of their energy usage data to integrate with web and mobile apps on computers, tablets and smartphones. London Hydro and Hydro One will launch Connect My Data pilots in late 2013.

The Energy Apps for Ontario Challenge is for Connect My Data-enabled apps. The winning submissions will be considered for the second half of the Connect My Data pilots in the spring of 2014.

Submissions for the Energy Apps for Ontario Challenge will be accepted up to January 7, 2014.

Jicin, Czech Republic --- (METERING.COM) --- October 3, 2013 - The IQRF Alliance has been launched as a consortium of companies linking manufacturers, system integrators and installation companies providing smart wireless solutions for building and smart home automation as well as indoor and outdoor lighting.

IQRF is a platform for low speed, low power, reliable and easy to use wireless connectivity. Based on IQRF technology, Direct Peripheral Access (DPA) is a framework enabling extremely easy and fast integration of full mesh wireless networking to any product. DPA also ensures full compatibility of different products from different manufacturers.

Columbia, MD, U.S.A. --- (METERING.COM) --- October 3, 2013 - RouteSmart for ArcGIS 2013 with an automated meter reading (AMR) routing solution that will allow utility operations to fully realize the savings of AMR by dramatically decreasing distances traveled, has been announced by RouteSmart Technologies.

The RouteSmart for ArcGIS 2013 with AMR routing solution allows utilities with AMR meters to input ERT read ranges based on manufacturer specs and observed ranges to create driving paths that minimize the number of streets needed to travel to read all meters. Utilities should be able to achieve reductions in route time and travel distances by 50% or more when ERT ranges are 750 feet or greater.

Washington, DC, U.S.A. --- (METERING.COM) --- October 2, 2013 - Contrary to the claim that the distributed generation (DG) customer derives no benefit from being connected to the host utility’s distribution system, the DG customer that is connected 24/7 utilizes grid services on a continuous, ongoing basis, according to a new paper from the IEE.

A new report from the European Environment Agency (EEA) has called for the full costs of water to be recovered from users in order to reduce waste – and if implemented would lead to the expansion of water metering throughout Europe.

San Diego, CA, U.S.A. --- (METERING.COM) --- October 1, 2013 - The Open Charge Alliance, a global consortium of public and private electric vehicle (EV) infrastructure leaders with more than 10,000 installations worldwide, is expanding its mission as it looks to the next wave of EV adoption.

Founded in 2010 as the Open Charge Point Protocol (OCPP) Forum, the Alliance is further developing OCPP and related interoperability standards and will build on the broad industry consensus behind OCPP to promote and enable open, flexible EV charging networks.